Susan Reid, post author

May 10, 2014 at 11:18am

Hi, Sarah. If I were in your situation, the first thing I would do is build myself a box to send to myself in Rhode Island. I'd measure all the dry ingredients for whatever layers I needed into plastic bags, and label them: "Dry ingredients for 9" layer." I'd also put in my large and small offset spatulas, maybe a cheap plastic lazy susan to use for a cake turntable, cake circles for the sizes I know I'm going to need, a drum for the base, pastry bags, tips, pastry brush for soaking layers, and any colors I might use. I'd print my recipes(twice), put one set in page protectors in the box and another in my carryon. Meringue powder if you're making Italian buttercream. Most party stores have a decent selection of pans, but they're not that heavy to ship. I'm compulsive enough to put in the 9" pan, the parchment and cake circles inside it, and the bag of dry ingredients all together before putting in the box. Somehow it's always easier to get that stuff together from your home base than it is to find it onsite. Line up the use of a stand mixer, kitchen, and refrigerator space for 2 days. Hopefully you'll only need one, but it's always good to have a cushion. And unless there's someone you can trust to wash dishes without bending your ear or distracting you, see if you can limit the amount of visitors who "just want to see how you're doing." Hard enough you're in a strange kitchen, even harder if people want to watch you the whole time. Make your "on site" shopping list: the things you'll need once you're on the east coast. Sugar, flour, eggs, milk, butter. Lots of butter. Make your layers, and while they're baking put together your simple syrup for soaking layers. Then go nuts on the buttercream. By the time it's ready, the layers will be cool and you can assemble and crumb coat at least one of them before you take a break. The more prepared you are and the more things you can set up before you leave home, the better things will go and more fun you'll have. Good luck, and I hope you send us pictures!! Susan
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
About text formats

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.